Bangui – Two Moroccan members of the Royal Armed Forces (FAR) squad of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic MINUSCA were killed on Tuesday, January 3 in an armed attack near the town of Bria, on the northeast of the capital Bangui, reports the Maghreb Arab Press (MAP).
In its statement, the MINUSCA explained that the incident occurred while the Moroccan peacekeepers, stationed in Bria, were escorting a convoy of trucks transporting fuel from the town of Zemio to Obo. According to the UN mission, two other Moroccans were injured in the incident.
The attackers, who were not identified, fled the scene.
“Nothing can justify why these individuals would direct their grievances against peacekeepers whose presence on the Central African ground has no other objective than to help the country rid itself of violence!” stated Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of MINUSCA.
“Everything will be done to track down and get hold of the perpetrators of these attacks so that they can be brought to justice,” he said.
In its press release, MINUSCA reminded that “harming the life of a peacekeeper can be considered a war crime and can be prosecuted.”
This is not the first time peacekeepers have been targeted in the Central African Republic. Several convoys of foreign soldiers have already been shot at by armed groups.
Last April, a Moroccan soldier died after a clash between a FAR unit and armed residents in Rafai, in the east of the country.
MINUSCA is a peacekeeping operation created in April 2014 by the UN in the framework of the war in the Central African Republic.
